![Best Practices at Tier 1 [Secondary] - Gayle Gregory](/cover_679455.jpg "Best Practices at Tier 1 [Secondary] - Gayle Gregory")
cannot overstress the importance of this area of learning. Even students who have no ethnic diversity in their current classroom can expect to learn—and work—with individuals of other cultures at various times throughout their lives. The more adept they become at demonstrating cultural responsivity, the more successfully they will collaborate in diverse groups later in life.
Educators have multiple tools and tactics available to them for developing a classroom environment of cultural responsivity. They can begin this effort by developing student awareness of their own and other cultures and ethnicities and by teaching students to appreciate the value of diversity in classrooms. Other methods for building cultural responsivity include:
Even everyday classroom interactions offer opportunities for students to learn cultural responsivity. As teachers become more familiar with their students’ cultural influences through conversations and their own reading and research, they can try to incorporate some multicultural ideas, practices, and traditions into their classroom teaching content and practices. Students and teachers alike must also be prepared to have patience as they continue to build their knowledge base of—and responsiveness to—other cultures. There are many resources available to educators working to build their knowledge of students’ culture (see, for example, Black, 2006; Brown, 2003; Ford, 2005; Gay, 2002; Montgomery, 2000). Teachers can also attend community cultural celebrations and occasions, inquire at local cultural organizations, and share and discuss cultural materials and information in collaborative teams and other professional groups.
As we continue on in the 21st century, we all can expect to learn, work, and live in culturally diverse groups at some period in our lives. In keeping with this reality, educators can’t limit their focus to the late–19th century concerns of reading, ’riting, and ’rithmetic. The three Rs of most concern in education today are relationships, responsibility, and respect. Without these understandings, little other learning may take place in the brain. In fact, our soul and spirit are hungry for more than just survival skills and a keen ability to remain on high alert. To feed the curiosity, interest, and engagement that drive learners today, educators must engage in the critical work of building a positive classroom community of learners.
Building Students’ Social Skills
Learning and demonstrating social skills is yet another essential element of a positive and nourishing learning environment. When students receive training in social skills, they reap the benefits of that training well into their adult lives. Many adults lose their jobs not because they lack appropriate job-specific knowledge or training, but because they can’t collaborate effectively with other employees. Adolescents are not necessarily any better at social skills than elementary students. That’s why social skills are such an important part of any secondary student’s toolkit for future success (Goleman, 2006b). Many middle and high school teachers feel they don’t have time to teach social skills with all the content they have to cover, but if they don’t, who will? Many families focus on teaching these skills in their home, but others neglect such teaching entirely. While some students may demonstrate a command of such social amenities like saying “please,” “thank you,” “pardon me,” “pleased to meet you,” and so on, many students lack training in these and other important social basics. Explicitly teaching social skills, therefore, is paramount to building a community of learners, as well as for preparing students for personal and professional success throughout life. Examples of essential social skills include:
In the next section of this chapter, we discuss cooperative group learning (CGL), and these basic social skills are fundamental to this process. Students who learn to check for understanding, ask for clarification, follow directions, disagree agreeably, resolve conflicts, accept differences, and encourage one another become better able to participate effectively in collaborative groups.
Teaching social skills isn’t like teaching “hard” skills such as reading or mathematics, where little is open to interpretation and students have direct and immediate opportunities to understand the practical application of what they’re learning. To successfully teach social skills, therefore, teachers must be certain to cover the following aspects.
Figure 2.1: Attentive listening Y-chart.
